If you thought medium-expensivestar vehicles were the only things the broke studios were nixing from their budgets these days, well then you were completely wrong, you idiot. Variety remarks this morning on the dearth of niche movie pickups this year by specialty divisions, with only Sony Pictures Classics, IFC Films, and Magnolia really buying anything, while the typically reliable Fox Searchlight has acquired only one movie (Adam) since The Wrestler last fall. Semi-surprisingly, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is still without American distribution, even though it stars Heath Ledger, whose last movie won him an Oscar and made a billion dollars. So it's fairly safe to say that by this time next year, the only movies playing in your local multiplex will be in 3-D and star Paul Blart fighting transformers.

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